Enterprise Rent-A-Car improves internal service with Business Process Management software.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car’s Request Services Department, part of the company’s global IT operation, is responsible for enabling the fulfillment of requests for a variety of technology products and services from thousands of employees worldwide.

The multiple systems the department had been using for years were mostly manual and prone to errors, and couldn’t keep up with growth in demand as the business expanded -- the number of IT requests nearly doubled in 18 months.

Enterprise implemented business process management (BPM) software to create a new request services platform, and has seen benefits such as increased automation and scalability, more effective fulfillment of requests, and the consolidation of multiple request systems into one platform.

Enterprise, based in St. Louis, is one of the largest car rental companies in the world, with more than 900,000 rental and fleet services vehicles, some 7,000 locations and more than 65,000 employees.

Before the company implemented BPM technology, its online request services systems could handle requests for hardware, software, network equipment, system access, and other products and services. But these systems relied heavily on manual processes and weren’t scalable, says Ron Puno, senior manager of IT at Request Services. The systems also weren’t capable of supporting a move toward automation, so Request Services wasn’t able to improve the request fulfillment process.

The department wanted to revamp the process so that it had fewer manual steps and would accommodate future growth. It also wanted the new request platform to include and enforce business rules to provide appropriate restrictions and oversee the fulfillment of services.

The need for change wasn’t driven so much by competitive pressures as it was by the department’s goal to better meet the fast-changing needs of the people who were making, approving and fulfilling IT requests, Puno says. Managers at the department determined that BPM software could help improve the request processes without requiring a lot of outside expertise.